Entomology and the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture (1872–1916)

Thirteen years after its establishment in 1872, the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture took official notice of the importance of entomology by having C. V. Riley, entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture, address its 1885 annual meeting on the subject of insects injurious to vegetation. Three years later Franklin Dye, the secretary of the State Board, included in the fifteenth report of the board fifty pages of material on entomology with numerous illustrations, all from the writings of C. V. Riley. From 1889, when J. A. Lintner addressed the annual meeting of the Board on injurious insects, entomological topics appeared more frequently on programs of its annual meetings. In his capacity as entomologist of the Experiment Station, John B. Smith spoke on insecticides. It was recorded earlier in these pages that the legislative appropriation for early Experiment Station study of San Jose scale was made in response to a resolution made at the Board's 1896 annual meeting.